Counter-education & obliquity

Walking past our local church the other day prompted me to ask: why don’t I believe in God?* The answer - and I think this goes for millions of atheists - is that as a young child I was told stories about a bearded old man on a cloud and as I grew up I reacted against such nonsense; those who kept their faith only did so by redefining God.
My methodist Sunday School failed to produce a religious man. But this is just one example of a wider tendency - that education can be counter-productive.
Take, for example, Shakespeare. How many millions of people are turned away from recognizing his genius by having him stuffed down their throats at school at an age when they are not yet receptive to his language and psychological insights? Wouldn’t he be even more widely and highly regarded if people were to discover him for themselves, rather than be prejudiced against him by school?
Similarly, millions are turned off of maths and science by terrible teachers.
Far from opening doors to science and culture, schools in practice slam them shut. They just give intelligent people something to rebel against. For example, when I was 11 we “did” The Hobbit at school, which only caused me to believe that no man ever spoke a truer word than Hugo Dyson.  And my grammar school - pretentiously - had rugby teams but not football teams. I’ve hated egg chasing ever since.  
Of course, I shouldn’t overstate the point. The thousands of alcoholic teachers don’t turn kids off of drinking. And millions of people’s love of football survives games lessons.
Nevertheless, counter-education is, I suspect, widespread. Which raises a question. Isn’t schooling, therefore, an area where John Kay’s Obliquity might apply? The direct approach - trying to enthuse kids about Shakespeare and science - fails in many cases. So, shouldn’t indirect approaches be tried?
But what would these look like? I’ve suggested teaching kids to gamble? What other possibilities are there? Or am I missing the point - that education is not about imparting culture or science, but is instead about entrenching class division?
* I mean: what’s the reason? not: what’s the rationalization? Bertrand Russell gave us this 83 years ago; Ditchkins add nothing to his arguments.

Comments

[Nigel]

"trying to enthuse" kids is often just too try-hard and betrays a lack of confidence in the teacher himself/herself about whether something's really worth the effort

whether it's science, Shakespeare or eating green vegetables then playing confidently hard to get is a better approach - "this is going to take some effort, but it's your choice whether you want to make it and your loss if you don't"

education to specifically subvert and demystify class divisions is an appealing thought - having all kids attend "class class"

[john b]

My alcoholic sixth form maths teacher did actually, very slightly, put me off drinking - while obviously getting blind drunk and trying to persuade girls to let me touch their boobs was still a strong element of sixth-form life, the sight of a 50ish man who was clearly wrecked-by-hangover whenever we had a 9am lesson and drunk whenever we had a 3pm lesson (but who was a really good teacher just before lunchtime) did make me briefly think about drinking in a negative kinda way...

[John Terry's Mum]

"The thousands of alcoholic teachers don’t turn kids off of drinking."

They might if they were forcing drink down kids' necks, but drinking isn't on the curriculum. (Pity no-one put Ditchkins of drink long ago).

"this is going to take some effort, but it's your choice whether you want to make it and your loss if you don't"
So is education simply a matter of the young choosing or not choosing to consume some ennobling subject or wegetable?

[Nigel]

"so is education simply a matter of the young choosing or not choosing to consume some enobling subject or vegetable?"

course not

but I think choice is often underplayed compared to cajoling, bribing, threatening, whether in arithmetic, "enobling subjects" or vegetables

not a panacea of course

[ian]

Whilst I'm sure that there's room for more (a lot more) flexibility in teaching, and that the national curriculum guarantees that everyone forced through the sausage factory has a pretty crappy time, this post is a mix of the obvious and giant logical fallacies, as far as I can see.

I would agree with a basic position that good teachers with a free hand to decide on how they teach are the best method for ensuring that the largest possible percentage of the inmates get the most out of their education. But then the politicians would have to let go of the reins a little bit. Scary.

Oh, and the 'teach kids to gamble' line features in the Wire - find something they're interested in, and teach them maths through that. I think there are almost certainly better angles to it than gambling however.

[charlieman]

The fictional Jimmy Corkhill on Brookside taught stats via the bookies in a few episodes.

[Shuggy]

"How many millions of people are turned away from recognizing his genius by having him stuffed down their throats at school at an age when they are not yet receptive to his language and psychological insights?"

As many who are turned on to him in school? Or maybe less? Or perhaps more? I dunno. Neither do you. So what's the point in asking questions one can't possibly answer?

[Kevin Carson]

The school system in my town adopted a "summer reading list" several years ago. I recall driving by one of the chain bookstores and seeing "We carry Watership Down and other required summer reading." Thank God we didn't have such a list when I was in school. As it is, I first read Watership Down around age 40. If I'd been forced to read it on my summer vacation, I'd probably have hated it till my dying day.

[chris]

@ Shuggy - what you're saying is that, to a very large extent, the effectiveness of education cannot be measured. Surely, there's a point in raising this point.

[Bialik]

I never did get schools and I still don't.
How can you inculcate a love of cultural artefacts if you make their appreciation compulsory? Why do they make you do experiments in chemistry to which we already know the answer? If games are so much fun why do they need to impose punishments for sitting them out?

However the question remains, which is the counter-productive aspect of education. Is it a mode of teaching, is it particular teachers, or the school/factory environment, or the compulsory aspect of education pre-16, or the rules and punishments that go along with education? I imagine it is different for everyone but I know which it was for me.

[Joe Otten]

English Lit did its best to put me off. And who cares about Lit Crit these days anyway?

English Lit should be: read whatever you want and get credit for doing so. (Exams to check you have actually read it.)

And be allowed to reach your own conclusions, rather than learning some tedious criticism to regurgitate later.